The allure of beachfront property isn't what it used to be, at least for NASA scientists.

Sea levels have been rising for decades, but new analysis of satellite data has concluded that the rise is accelerating much faster than researchers had previously estimated.

"The data shows that sea level is rising faster than it was 50 years ago, and it's very likely to get worse in the future," said Steve Nerem, an astrodynamics professor at the University of Colorado and head of a panel of scientists studying the issue at the U.S. space agency.

The U.S. West Coast is one of the areas where sea levels have dropped, thanks to natural cycles, but researchers believe that will likely change dramatically over the next 20 years. Florida, on the other hand, is already at significant risk, with the panel scientists pointing out that normal spring weather now causes street flooding in Miami.

"People need to understand that the planet is not only changing, it's changed," said Thomas P. Wagner, a NASA program scientist for the cryosphere.

The rising sea levels are caused by a combination of warmer ocean waters and the melting of polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers. In a conference call with reporters, the scientists pointed out that the Greenland ice sheet has lost an average of 303 gigatons of ice every year over the past decade. A gigaton is one billion tons.

Nerem said the data presently shows that the planet is "locked into" at least 3 feet of sea-level rise on average across the globe. The question is how quickly that rise will happen. It could be within the next century or take significantly longer.